Full list of Essays

• Good takes effort

  Published 18th of Aug 2025

  In software there is incidental work and inherent work. We adopt tools to do the incidental work so we can focus our creativity on the inherent complexity, which is where the value is.

• Woz is the happiest person ever

  Published 16th of Aug 2025

  Someone commented on Slashdot that Steve Wozniak was a fool for selling and giving away most of his shares in Apple. Woz replied with this gem.

• How to build a great software engineering team.

  Published 24th of May 2025

  Great teams build great software.

• Make Your Own Luck

  Published 18th of Jul 2024

  Luck plays a role in our successes and failures. But, we can take deliberate action to make ourselves a target for good luck.

• The Vintage Software Engineer

  Published 9th of Feb 2023

  I tend to downplay new things in software which people are generally excited about. Perhaps unfairly.

• My Gear for a Winter Great Range Traverse

  Published 23rd of Feb 2018

  What I learned during preparation, training, and practice for the Adirondack Great Range Traverse.

• Winter Traverse of the Adirondack Great Range

  Published 20th of Feb 2018

  Testing the limits of moving quickly over the rugged Adirondack wilderness in the Winter. I learned a lot about myself and the mountains in the process.

• Solve Hard Problems

  Published 22nd of Aug 2016

  There is a reluctance work on valuable problems in software because of a bias toward the 'easily' scalable ones.